Employer Lawfully Fired Worker Impaired by Prescription Drugs

​A former employee failed to demonstrate to a federal appeals court that her termination was based on her disability instead of on her admission that she reported to work impaired by prescription drugs.

A former employee with WellStar Health System filed a claim against her former employer for discriminatory termination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Her termination report stated that she reported to work impaired in violation of WellStar's policy, and that she was terminated due to her violation of the policy.

The ADA prohibits an employer from discriminating based upon the known physical or mental impairments of a qualified individual with a disability, including by discharging an employee based on his or her disability. An employee bears the initial burden of showing that he or she has a disability, is a qualified individual and experienced unlawful discrimination because of the disability. If an employee makes this showing, the burden shifts to the employer to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the challenged action. If the employer does so, the burden shifts back to the employee to show that the employer's reason is pretext.

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The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the plaintiff failed to disprove WellStar's stated legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for her termination by alleging specific evidence that WellStar's reason was pretextual. The court noted that the plaintiff admitted that she was impaired and had undisclosed prescription drugs in her system.

She argued that WellStar improperly terminated her solely for coming to work impaired as a result of her depression, and that because WellStar did not consult a physician to determine whether the unreported drugs caused the impairment, its stated reason was pretextual.

Unconvinced, the court remarked that even if WellStar was mistaken that the plaintiff was impaired due to the influence of a prescribed medication, it could have believed this to be true when she was impaired and using a prescribed medication, the use of which had not been reported previously, in violation of its policy. An employer's honest belief that an employee violated its policies can constitute a legitimate reason for termination even if the employer's belief may have been mistaken, the 11th Circuit commented.

The plaintiff also pointed to several other facts that allegedly suggested that WellStar's stated reason for terminating her was pretextual. The plaintiff maintained that a doctor's note she received the morning of the incident confirmed that she was able to return to work that day and indicated that the doctor did not find her mental state "amiss." Yet the court emphasized that the note came from a follow-up to her recent rectal surgery, not as a mental-health assessment or a professional opinion on her state of mind, and therefore it did not directly disprove WellStar's good-faith belief that prescription drugs led to her inability to perform her job.

The plaintiff further contended that WellStar did not complete an employee conference form giving her an opportunity to dispute the positive drug-test result in accordance with its own internal policies. While this may have been a deviation from company policy, the court observed no basis to suggest that the deviation occurred in a discriminatory manner. As such, the 11th Circuit concluded that WellStar's stated reason for terminating the plaintiff was one that could motivate a reasonable employer, and it accordingly granted summary judgment in WellStar's favor on the plaintiff's discriminatory-termination claim.

Connelly v. WellStar Health System Inc., 11th Cir., No. 18-11217 (Jan. 9, 2019).

Professional Pointer: Clear policies that are uniformly implemented can significantly assist an employer's defense against discrimination claims.

Roger S. Achille is an attorney and a professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.

[Visit SHRM's resource page on the Americans with Disabilities Act.]